3 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

If he means he can come back in immediately then he is wrong. The penalties for overstaying by as long as he has involve at least a 3 year ban, possibly 5. Which of those it is, depends on whether it's less than three years, or more.

 

 

Overstaying in Thailand

Yeah thanks, it was my feeling that he is in much more trouble than he thinks. I can put all this to him but whether he will listen I don't know. I don't really know what's going on inside his head tbh. 

4 hours ago, Deserted said:

Yeah thanks, it was my feeling that he is in much more trouble than he thinks. I can put all this to him but whether he will listen I don't know. I don't really know what's going on inside his head tbh. 

 

Unfortunately, his idiocy is liable to end up hurting others than just himself. I hope his family will be able to deal with the aftermath.

3 hours ago, BritTim said:

 

Unfortunately, his idiocy is liable to end up hurting others than just himself. I hope his family will be able to deal with the aftermath.

Frankly, I rather think his wife will be glad to see the back of him for a while. 

2 hours ago, Deserted said:

Frankly, I rather think his wife will be glad to see the back of him for a while. 

For a while, very possibly - but for five years?

10 hours ago, treetops said:

Biometrics and personal data.

if it works

10 hours ago, Deserted said:

have a friend who has overstayed by three years now. He tells me all he has to do is book a flight out, pay a 20,000 baht fine and then come back, is this correct? He has never been in trouble before for anything but I told him I don't think its so simple. Who is right, me or him?

why do you care, is  that your problem? Better for health to not put your nose in others...

Many of the over stayers must think that Thailand is a backward, third world country that no one will notice their overstaying, oh, how surly wrong they are....

12 hours ago, Deserted said:

I have a friend who has overstayed by three years now. He tells me all he has to do is book a flight out, pay a 20,000 baht fine and then come back, is this correct? He has never been in trouble before for anything but I told him I don't think its so simple. Who is right, me or him?

He enjoys it here so much he's on 3 years overstay ? When he does leave he may see a stamp in his PP whether new or old he hands over..........'no entry before 2029' terrible error on his part. 

15 hours ago, Shop mak said:

There was a news article not long ago, that Police had located overstayers by their mobile phone location. 

That's handy they only have my wife's phone number 

14 hours ago, Deserted said:

 

That's what I thought all along. He stopped trying when Covid came and hasn't attended to it since. But how they gonna know if he reports his passport as lost and gets a new one. They won't have the new one in the system and he should be okay right?

How will he identify himself in his application for new passport, I thought a lost passport needs a police report.

Quite a few years ago I had some problems when leaving the country for a visarun. It happened at Pedang Besar that the IO told me, "You are not in the computer." I helped him by suggesting to look up first and last name instead of last and first name. But otherwise, the Immigration computer was always right in 29 years...

16 hours ago, dddave said:

Fines are much higher,

 

Totally the opposite, the fines imposed by the court are nearly always much LOWER than the 500 baht per day.

16 hours ago, Shop mak said:

There was a news article not long ago, that Police had located overstayers by their mobile phone location. 

well I'll go to the pictures!

36 minutes ago, bigt3116 said:

 

Totally the opposite, the fines imposed by the court are nearly always much LOWER than the 500 baht per day.

but they won't let you book your own flight out would they? once detained, even at the airport, you can only buy ticket out  through them and to your passport countries nly 

14 hours ago, CartagenaWarlock said:

I stopped renewing my MC registration during COVID and have not done so yet. The MC is a used one I bought five years ago for 18K. I only run it in Jomtien's back alleys for going to 7-11 or to the beach. 

I think you've posted this in the wrong thread as it has nothing to do with immigration and overstaying.

That's a confusing article as far as the actual reason for the arrest is concerned.

 

The article mentions a second guy who was arrested and sent to a police station in Krabi, which to me indicates that he was arrested because an arrest warrant had been issued for him in Krabi before he attempted to leave Thailand via Phuket Airport.

 

In other words, he was arrested trying to leave the country as a wanted suspect for committing some crime while also on overstay, but he wasn't arrested because of his overstay.

 

With the guy sent to a Phuket police station for further processing, it's not so clear. 

16 hours ago, Deserted said:

I have a friend who has overstayed by three years now. He tells me all he has to do is book a flight out, pay a 20,000 baht fine and then come back, is this correct? He has never been in trouble before for anything but I told him I don't think its so simple. Who is right, me or him?

 

how hard is it not to overstay? deserves the full force of appropriate legislation thrown at him. people like this only make things more difficult for those of us that have no problem following some basic laws.

18 minutes ago, ChipButty said:

Not easy getting a new passport these days, especially a UK one 

 

 

Why?

20 minutes ago, buick said:

your friend needs to talk to an Agent.  they can help with overstays.  a new passport is the first step.  it'll probably cost him 100,000thb.  Agent's like this kind of work !!

Agree! Friend should remove himself from all involvement. Visa Agent will know a fixer if it's beyond their scope. Most everything can be fixed for a fee. It all depends how much and if the guy has the cash?

2 hours ago, bigt3116 said:

 

Totally the opposite, the fines imposed by the court are nearly always much LOWER than the 500 baht per day.

Sounds correct because court fines are geared towards Thai people.

16 hours ago, swerve said:

I don't know how Thai Immigration catches deportees when they pull a fast one, and try to return early.  Like with a name change passport.  But, they do catch many of them and it doesn't go well.  Maybe your friend doesn't need to be in Thailand.  There are other warm countries he can go to and wait out his 5 year ban should he wish to return.

How do they catch them? Simple.  Biometrics, databases and facial recognition software. Deportees deserve to be caught if they haven't bothered to keep up with the technology, because Thailand's Immigration Dept certainly has. 

I would strongly urge you to tell him to get out, as soon as possible, using a Bangkok airport, by paying his 20,000 fine and then trying to "convince" the IO in charge with a large wad of notes to reduce the blacklist period, he can always try, it may not work.

 

Far better than getting caught and spending time in the detention center, especially for an older farang.

 

He could visit a nearby country like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, while he ponders his next steps, and also his family could easily visit him while he figures it out.

2 hours ago, digbeth said:

but they won't let you book your own flight out would they? once detained, even at the airport, you can only buy ticket out  through them and to your passport countries nly 

 

When you face deportation, there is no theoretical limitation on where you can go, and which airline you can use, but ...

 

Under international law, the airline and the country you are being deported to must be informed that you are a deportee. Almost invariably, they can and will refuse to accept you. In nearly every case, you will be deported to your country of citizenship (which is obligated to receive you). Further, without special negotiations, the only airline that is likely to accept you is your country's national carrier, not a low cost airline.

3 minutes ago, CanadaSam said:

and then trying to "convince" the IO in charge with a large wad of notes to reduce the blacklist period, he can always try, it may not work.

 

That will not work.

 

In the past (and probably still) there were fixers who were able to resolve long overstays without blacklisting. If able to come up with serious amounts of money, an experienced agent will probably be able to give him a referral to one. At the airport, too many eyes can see what is going on. Falsifying his Immigration history or getting a special dispensation from the Minister is simply not going to be possible.

51 minutes ago, BritTim said:

the only airline that is likely to accept you is your country's national carrier, not a low cost airline.

Some countries, the USA and UK to name but two, don't have a "national carrier" as such. Perhaps the more relevant criterion is that it should be a direct flight, which would in many cases rule out a low cost airline.

8 hours ago, vangrop said:

if it works

Are you living under a rock or something? Of course that works, it does since years. Your friend is basically done for 5-10 years once arrested or leaving on his own free will. The only way to come back would be a very big bribe that you organize before leaving via some contact or to come back to Thailand by crossing in illegally.

14 minutes ago, Eff1n2ret said:

Some countries, the USA and UK to name but two, don't have a "national carrier" as such. Perhaps the more relevant criterion is that it should be a direct flight, which would in many cases rule out a low cost airline.

 

That may come as a surprise to BA..

 

 

British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport.

 

You don't have to be nationalised to be the national flag carrier.

Simple answer is don’t overstay 

1 hour ago, CanadaSam said:

I would strongly urge you to tell him to get out, as soon as possible, using a Bangkok airport, by paying his 20,000 fine and then trying to "convince" the IO in charge with a large wad of notes to reduce the blacklist period, he can always try, it may not work.

 

Too risky, the IOs at the airport don't really have that discretion (the rules about blacklisting give no discretion to immigration whatsoever) and there are too many watchful eyes. Also, what do you do in case they reject your offer? It's then too late to explore other options.

 

Any fixer who can still organize that will most likely use a land border.

 

Coincidentally, when I used a land border crossing at the Thailand-Cambodia border earlier this year, a young European woman in front of me ran into a problem entering Thailand, because the IO couldn't find a record of her leaving Thailand the last time in the system, about ten years prior. She said she had flown home from Phuket Airport, the IO asked if she had her old passport with her, which she didn't. Eventually, she was let in, but it was a struggle. IOs probably have instructions for that scenario, as it used to be more common in the past. To be clear, I'm fairly sure that with her, it was genuinely a case of a missing record in the system.

 

It's easy to see how this could be exploited by a fixer working with a "cooperative" IO at a land border: new passport, fake entry and exit stamps from the neighboring country. The Thai IO will have to decide what to make of the missing exit record from an entry years ago. Given the right incentive, this could be guaranteed to go the way I described above. 

 

 

3 hours ago, Eff1n2ret said:

Some countries, the USA and UK to name but two, don't have a "national carrier" as such. Perhaps the more relevant criterion is that it should be a direct flight, which would in many cases rule out a low cost airline.

 

Certainly not true of the UK:. See, for instance, https://www.britishairways.com/cms/global/pdfs/BASI_5_Environment_Policy_July_2023_v2.0.pdf

Quote

As the UK’s flag carrier, we connect Britain with the world and the world with Britain ...